Foobar on Debian Install

[pmartin]

Well, I tried to put Debian on my home computer dual boot (this is my third attempt, because I keep changing my system; the first two times worked fine). I am quite familiar with Linux as it is a big part of my day job, so I am surprised at the results of tonight's work:
I install Debain to dual boot with windows, and GRUB sees Windows and writes to mbr. On reboot, all I get is "Error loading operating system!"

What do I do now? Is there any way to repair this?

Regards,
p

[antidrugue]

Repair the MBR with Grub:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...-GRUB-natively

If that doesn't work, try a live CD (Knoppix), and do a

fdisk -l

to see if the partition table is OK.

If the partition table is corrupted, then you'll just have the rewrite it with fdisk (partitions have to be same size as they were).

[pmartin]

I got GRUB to load up properly, but it appears the entry to load linux is pointing to the wrong place! I hit the linux kernel in GRUB and I get the following:
root (hd1,1)
Error 22: No such partition

How do I find out what the partition is? I thought it was hd1,1 since my computer boots off of the sata hard drive (my 2nd hard drive in bios). hd1,0 is windows and it boots fine.

[genesus]

not sure if you are taking this into account or not, but hd numbers and partitions start at 0 in grub, so for two examples hardrive 1, 2nd partition would be (hd0,1), hard drive 2, 4th part would be (hd1,3)

[pmartin]

I am pretty sure my mapping is correct for the linux root. Here is my GRUB menu.lst file:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
## ## End Default Options ##

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-11-amd64-generic Default
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2 ro console=tty0
initrd /boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-11-amd64-generic Default (recovery mode)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2 ro console=tty0 single
initrd /boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-11-amd64-generic
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-11-amd64-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro console=tty0
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-11-amd64-generic
savedefault
boot

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-11-amd64-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-11-amd64-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro console=tty0 single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-11-amd64-generic
savedefault
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

And my devices map is:
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/sda

So I'm stumped right now! It finds widows just fine, but gives me that Error 22 when trying to get linux!

[monkey8]

I got GRUB to load up properly, but it appears the entry to load linux is pointing to the wrong place! I hit the linux kernel in GRUB and I get the following:
root (hd1,1)
Error 22: No such partition

How do I find out what the partition is? I thought it was hd1,1 since my computer boots off of the sata hard drive (my 2nd hard drive in bios). hd1,0 is windows and it boots fine.

I ran into the exact same problem when I booted off my second drive. The drive orders do not remain the same, hd0 now points to the drive you boot off of.

The drive that has grub: /dev/hdb2

Since I set bios to boot from /dev/hdb, /dev/hdb becomes (hd0) in grub, so

/dev/hdb2 becomes "root (hd0,1)"

Tip: when you get that error, you can edit the 'root' line, type (hd[tab] and you'll get a list of valid devies, and (hd0[tab] to get a list of partitions. (Tab too early and you'll get a list of all possible, not which ones you have)

grub error codes: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...e2-errors.html

[pmartin]

Though it doesn't really make sense, your solution worked! I went to edit the grub listing and tab into the "hd" drive mapping, and the results showed me the linux partition.
Thanks for the help everyone!